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Poetry as the Writing Equivalent of Mixed Media Art - Coggle Diagram

- - - - The choice in vocabulary, and the tone in which those words are delivered, has a significant effect on the attitude and mood a poem conveys. Whether a poem sarcastic/humorous, somber, etc. is largely dependent on these aspects.
        
        "February" by Margaret Atwood has a casual, sardonic and rather humorous tone compared to some of her other work.
        
        "February" by Margaret Atwood
    - - Metaphor is a literary device that allows a poet to create connections between different themes without stating those connections literally. While similes are more straightforward in their comparisons, they also give poets a way to make a connection between two things that might not have been considered comparable otherwise. Symbols, like metaphors and similes, allow a poet to create associations and communicate nuanced ideas without spelling them out. Colors, for example, are often used as symbols (black represents death, blue represents sadness, red represents passion or anger, green represents naivety or youth and renewal, etc.).
        
        In "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks, the color green in the last stanza is symbolic of the youth of those whom the speaker of the poem is addressing. It is also, more broadly, a symbol for life itself.
        
        "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks"
    - - Defamiliarization, or "strangeifying," is a technique in which a writer describes something in an odd or unusual way so that the reader is forced to look at it in a way they never would have before.
        
        Defamiliarization typically takes the form of describing something with language that wouldn't typically be employed to represent it, or using words in a strange and unfamiliar way (even going so far as to create a new word altogether, such as by turning a noun into a verb or vice versa). Examples: "there shall be such islanding from grief" ("A Sunset of the City" by Gwendolyn Brooks), "a single hurt color" ("A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass" by Gertrude Stein), "your laconic trigger-fingers people the streets with villains: as you move, the air in front of you blossoms with targets" ("Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" by Margaret Atwood),
        
        "A Sunset of the City" by Gwendolyn Brooks
        
        "A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass" by Gertrude Stein
        
        "Backdrop Addresses Cowboy" by Margaret Atwood
- - - - The pattern in which words rhyme from line to line, or even within a single line, plays a significant role in the cadence of a poem. Some examples of various rhyme schemes include Alternate Rhyme (ABAB CDCD EFEF etc.), Chain Rhyme (ABA BCB CDC), and Enclosed Rhyme (first and last lines in a stanza end in a rhyme with each other).
        
        While there are various types of sonnets, the most common ones are Shakespearean and Petrarchan. Shakespearean sonnets tend to follow a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, while Petrarchan sonnets typically follow a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA CDCDCD.
    - - While repetition and alliteration can be used to create a more specific pattern in the rhythm of a poem, they can also be used to break up that rhythm.
        
        "Sonnet 30" by William Shakespeare features extensive alliteration in lines 1 and 4, which embellishes the rhythm of the poem. "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks doesn't have a clear rhythm the way a sonnet does, but repetition of the phrase "will wait" helps to tie the poem together and gives the first stanza a mantra-like quality, while also forcing the reader to slow down and give pause.
        
        "Sonnet 30" by William Shakespeare
        
        "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks
    - - The meter of a poem is the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that constitute each line. Various types of meter include Pentameter, Spondaic, and Anapest.
        
        Shakespearean sonnets are predominantly written in Iambic Pentameter.
- - - - Many of the pieces in William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and of Experience" touch on various social issues, such as classism and racism.
        
        "The Little Black Boy" by William Blake
        
        "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake
      - Much of Gwendolyn Brooks' poetry draws on her experiences as a Black person, especially leading up to, during and after the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. Brooks also incorporates other kinds of social commentary into her work, such as observations of classism, sexism, sex work, and even youth mental health.
        
        "Primer for Blacks" by Gwendolyn Brooks
        
        "To the Young Who Want to Die" by Gwendolyn Brooks
        
        "A Song in the Front Yard" by Gwendolyn Brooks
  - - - Some poets write during or after times of crisis to process the trauma they've experienced or are actively experiencing. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, for example, were British soldiers in WWI who became famous for the poetry they wrote about the things they had to endure on the battlefield. These poems, such as "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Owen, contain gut-wrenching descriptions of wartime horrors ("Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.")
        
        "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen
        
        "Counter-Attack" by Siegfried Sassoon
- - - - In "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens, each stanza is numbered and clearly distinct from the next. While the blackbird theme ties all of them together, they could also function well on their own as miniature poems.
        
        "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens
      - Some poems are so short that they only consist of one stanza, or have no line breaks at all. Sonnets are often written and/or transcribed without stanza breaks, although it's pretty which lines are meant to be grouped together based on the typical structure and rhyme scheme of a sonnet.
        
        "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound
        
        "Sonnet 23" by William Shakespeare
        
        "The Pool" by H.D.
        
        "A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass" by Gertrude Stein
  - - - Sometimes the shape of a poem can be used as a literal representation of the poem's subject matter. For example, in "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams, each stanza roughly takes the shape of a wheelbarrow.
        
        "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams
  - - - Some poems don't have intentional line breaks at all, and the breaks only occur where the page ends, challenging the "rules" of poetry and subverting the idea that poems must have line breaks. "A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass" by Gertrude Stein is a good example of this, as it is essentially just three sentences that do not form definitive "lines". What makes this poem "poetic" are its other aspects, such as informal grammar and atypical use of descriptive language ("a single hurt color").
        
        "A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass" by Gertrude Stein
      - Poems with extremely short lines create many little pauses, which forces the reader to slow down a bit while reading.
        
        "Soprano" by Rita Dove